From the WSJ:
One of the world’s leading conductors, Valery Gergiev, a Russian, was dismissed as leader of the Munich Philharmonic and uninvited from conducting concerts with other leading orchestras because of his alleged closeness to President Vladimir Putin and his refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine.
“Valery Gergiev has not clearly and unambiguously distanced himself from the brutal invasion that Putin is waging against Ukraine and our partner city Kyiv, despite my demands,” the mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, told the Bavarian public broadcast network, announcing the dismissal. The city funds the orchestra and rules over top appointments there.
Gergiev campaigned with Putin in 2014 and has, when probed about his support of Putin in the past, given a kind of rote explanation that Putin helped to restore order and dignity after the depredations and humiliations of the 1990s. He has refused to condemn various actions of the Russian government in the past. Gergiev has been let go from orchestras across the Western world in the past week.
The National Hockey League has been subject to intense debate about the status of Russian hockey players, since Czech Hall-of-Famer Dominic Hasek called them out, saying, “The NHL must immediately suspend contracts for all Russian players!” The NHL itself paused all its Russian-language promotional efforts and suspended their business relationships. Some Russian NHL players are against the war. Some of them, such as Alexander Ovechkin, are known to have been supporters of Putin in the past. The NHL has only issued a statement that their Russian players have been put in a difficult position.
The NHL is exactly right that those players are in a difficult position. Many of these men have families at home in Russia that could be harassed either by the government or their neighbors if their famous son in America or Canada says something critical of the war effort. They themselves may have no choice but to make their home in Russia again someday.
America and Germany are not (thank God) belligerents in this war. And if we want to live up to our values, I do not think we should demand that Russian nationals submit statements based on political formulas we draw up, as happened in Berlin. There is a decent human instinct — one we admire — that recoils from forced political statements, even if we agree with them.
Gergiev had not said anything about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was not publicly providing material aid to Russia’s cause. He was just Russian and someone known to have supported Putin in the past.
Remember, it would be very easy for Putin to ask Gergiev to make statements about the government of Germany, the country whose philharmonic orchestra pays him handsomely. It would be easy, and destructive.
I think this makes us look bad, not Gergiev. Freedom doesn’t win the battle with authoritarianism by demanding that people grovel.